


I Leave Death in My Wake (But I Give As Much As I Take)

by Forestfire34720



Series: How Far is Too Far? [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson-centric, Dubious Morality, Gen, Gray Morality, Killing, Killing vs Murder, Morally Ambiguous Character, Murder, POV Dick Grayson, Philosophical Discussions, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25159696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forestfire34720/pseuds/Forestfire34720
Summary: “Desmond doesn’t think Dick will do it. He thinks it’s a bluff, a last-ditch ploy to both scare him into stopping and keep Catalina from killing him. He thinks he’s safe in the knowledge that Dick Grayson, the great and righteous Nightwing, will never cross that line.But despite what people may think, Dick Grayson has always been just as capable of dark as he is of light.Dick sets his feet, hardens his heart, and pulls the trigger.”Dick Grayson chooses to kill Blockbuster, goes after the very worst of Gotham’s rogues, and ponders on the differences between killing and murdering.
Series: How Far is Too Far? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1822639
Comments: 6
Kudos: 115





	I Leave Death in My Wake (But I Give As Much As I Take)

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place before Jason's return to Gotham as Red Hood.
> 
> This was greatly inspired by the following quote from _Return to Zero_ (the third and final book in the _Lorien Legacies Reborn_ series), by Pittacus Lore (penname of James Frey): “I thought I could be a leader. Thought I was so gifted, so smart. But... I’m bad... Let me [kill him]. So the rest of you can be good.” In my copy of the book, it can be found on page 427. 
> 
> Warning: Character death (of villains, not heroes). Includes in-depth discussion on killing vs murdering, and the morality of it. This gets pretty philosophical on that topic.

It starts in a stairwell, a trail of death in his wake, pushed to the brink, desperate to avenge those he tried so hard to save and couldn't.

Dick is standing frozen with indecision. Roland Desmond is sneering at him, mocking his desperation, his inability to save people. How even now, after everything he's done, everyone he's killed, Dick is still trying to figure out how to save him from Catalina.

And Catalina Flores herself is telling him to move, gun steady in her hands. Her voice is hard. There's a promise in it, a promise to kill Desmond for him. She gives him an unwavering stare, a silent order, and when he continues to hesitate, she repeats herself.

Dick can barely hear her over the pounding of his heartbeat. Desmond's words echo in his ears, nonstop, over and over again, drowning out everything else.

_"It's never going to stop..."_

Desmond's right. It's never going to stop. He will kill every person Dick has ever loved, every person he might one day love, every person who so as much glances Dick's way. Every mistake he makes, every life he risks. It's never going to stop...

...unless Dick _makes_ it stop.

Something in his chest settles. The last piece of the puzzle he only now realizes he's been building clicks into place. He knows what he has to do.

He punches Desmond in the head, hard enough that he falls stunned to the floor. Then he steps toward Catalina, holding out one hand.

"Give me the gun, Tarantula," he says quietly.

"He deserves to die," she hisses. "Get out of the way. Let me kill him for you. I can make it stop."

And it's tempting, to just let her do it. But he can't. He won't. He doesn't know why he's so sure on this point. What he does know is that Desmond took so much from Dick, and this time, Dick is going to be the one to take something from him. Not Catalina.

Dick steps closer, his voice falling even softer. " _Cat._ Give me the gun."

She opens her mouth to snap something back, but then she pauses. She searches his masked eyes for several long seconds and must see something that wins her over because a moment later she turns the gun around and offers it to him grip-first. Catalina watches with undeniable curiosity as Dick takes it and turns toward where Desmond is pushing himself back upright.

The metal is warm even through his gloves. Dick inhales quickly and aims straight for Desmond's head, who looks intrigued and vaguely surprised by the turn of events but not overly concerned.

He doesn't think Dick will do it. He thinks it's a bluff, a last-ditch ploy to both scare him into stopping and keep Catalina from killing him. He thinks he's safe in the knowledge that Dick Grayson, the great and righteous Nightwing, will never cross that line.

"You gonna kill me, Nightwing? Huh?" Desmond laughs at him. "We both know you don't have the guts for that."

But despite what people may think, Dick Grayson has always been just as capable of dark as he is of light.

Dick sets his feet, hardens his heart, and pulls the trigger.

* * *

Despite the fact that they're now complicit together in killing Desmond, his and Catalina's partnership doesn't last much longer. Even ignoring the fact that she destroyed his relationship with Barbara, they're just... not compatible. He can see that now, without Desmond's malevolent shadow hovering over his shoulder.

Catalina thinks that because Dick chose to kill Desmond, she has a free pass to kill more people. That Dick won't protest, that he'll side with her. At the very least, that he won't stand in her way.

Dick isn't sure either, not at first. If he killed Desmond, surely he'd be fine with her killing others, right?

Three days later, he sees her aim a gun at one of Blüdhaven's many drug lords and realizes that no, he's not fine with it. He's not fine with it at all.

He grabs her arm and forces the gun to point away from the cowering man.

"Don't."

She yanks her arm away, confused and angry.

"Why not?"

Dick tries to find the words that can convey his emotions. Eventually, all he can say is, "It's not right."

"You killed Blockbuster, remember," she challenges and gestures at the drug lord. "You shot him in the head. How is this any different?"

He's doesn't know. What he does know is that, for some strange reason, he can't stand by and watch her kill this man, no matter how horrible he is.

Things between them sour quickly after that. Catalina seems to take his refusal as a personal betrayal, growing cold toward him, and Dick does nothing to try to mend their relationship. If he's honest with himself, Dick doesn't even want to. Especially when she keeps insisting that they kill criminals, more and more often with greater vigor.

But still Dick refuses.

And after weeks of wrestling with himself, he finally comes to a conclusion.

Killing Roland Desmond had been selfish, in a way. Desmond murdered so many innocent people, would've murdered so many more, but looking back, he thinks that that hadn't been why he'd had killed him. It had been because he had targeted _Dick_ , specifically, because he had torn _Dick's_ life apart and destroyed _Dick's_ happiness. It had been spurred on by the desire to keep anyone else from dying, sure, but somewhere along the line it had turned into retribution.

And he'd killed once before, technically speaking, and that had been borne of vengeance as well. He'd beat Joker to death, beat him until his suit had been more red than blue and he could barely see past the haze of rage and the only thing that existed was the feeling of his fists against flesh. Bruce had brought Joker back, and no one had ever mentioned it again. Joker is still alive, still free, still killing, so technically it doesn't count. But the memory remains, sharp and tainted and bitter.

Looking back now, Dick's not sure he would've regretted it if Joker had stayed dead. So many people might have been saved if that was the case. But he wasn't thinking of that in the moment; Dick had only thought of his fury at Jason's death and when he'd believed Tim dead as well, a blinding desire to _make_ _Joker_ _pay_.

Then and there, Dick vows to himself that he's never going to make another selfish kill ever again.

* * *

"If you kill a killer, the number of killers in the world remains the same," Bruce had told him before.

And that's true (so long as he stops at one, anyway). Dick killed a killer and in turn became a killer himself. The number of killers hasn't changed.

But the number of _murderers_ has.

And the price for that, he thinks, is worth it.

Bruce always struggled with the distinction. So had Dick. Now, though, he thinks he understands.

To be a killer is not a bad thing in and of itself. After all, soldiers are trained to be killers, and they are some of the bravest people to walk the earth. It all depends on _who_ is killed. Soldiers kill in defense in their country, for the greater good, so their enemies don't return and kill innocents. They take lives in order to save lives.

There's a fine line between killing and murdering. Soldiers kill, but they do not murder.

Much as he hates to label himself as such, much as he hates the reality of it, Dick understands just what he is: a soldier, trained to fight in Batman's never-ending war against crime. And sometimes, soldiers have to take lives for the greater good.

* * *

Catalina leaves, and Dick lets her, with the promise that if she keeps killing he will make sure she never sees the outside of a prison cell again.

She scowls and storms away and for a week's time heeds his warning. By the time night falls on the eighth day, he hears word that she's murdered a drug dealer. He can't deny that the world is a better place without him, not in the least, but there needs to be a line somewhere, and Dick's drawn it at the very worst of the worst. The mass murderers, those who break out of jail repeatedly only to continue their reign of terror.

Drug dealers and rapists and murderers don't deserve to live, but if a vigilante on a murdering spree takes their places, killing whoever he pleases, then in the end, how can he claim that he has made the world a better place, a safer place?

So Dick holds true to his promise and locks her away.

* * *

For most everyone Dick fights, he continues to refuse to kill. He needs a strict, hard line or else he might truly fall to Batman's prophecy, justifying death as an appropriate punishment for increasingly lesser offenses, until he's no better than those he fight.

He needs a strict, hard line, and some people still break it. When that happens, Dick finds he doesn't hesitate anymore.

When Joker breaks out of prison and plants bombs around Gotham, at least two of which is set in an elementary school and a daycare, Dick goes to the city, tracks him down, and puts a bullet through his head.

When Black Mask launches a massive operation that spans across several major cities — including Blüdhaven — and sends out a new wave of highly-addictive and easily-fatal drugs all across the country, Dick slips into his room at night and slits his throat.

When Scarecrow unleashes his fear gas in a crowded mall and watches in fascination as people tear each other to pieces out of fear for the monsters they believe them to be, Dick drops down behind him and breaks his neck.

Quick. Clean. Efficient.

It doesn't matter who it is, doesn't matter that it's Black Mask and Scarecrow and even Joker. The death he doles out is always quick. A gunshot to the head, a slit throat, a broken neck. They deserve to die, but he's not vindictive enough to make even the worst of the worst suffer beforehand.

They're the only ones he kills, though. As he faces down just about everyone else, Dick remembers the line he drew for himself and makes sure not to cross it.

When Harley Quinn attacks him in retribution for Joker's death, though, Dick looks at Harley Quinn and sees the mad grief in her eyes and remembers what he'd read in her profile. An up-and-coming therapist, driven mad by exposure to Joker. A murderer, but also a victim, one who given the chance, might be able to recover. Dick doesn't kill her. Instead, after a long fight, he subdues her and brings her to Ivy.

"You didn't kill her," Ivy says when he appears on her doorstep. Her gaze is narrowed in suspicion, but there's also a hint of relief hidden in their depths. There's an unvoiced question hanging between them too: _are you going to try to kill me too?_

"Joker was the one who did this to her," Dick says, "and he's dead now. She deserves the chance to discover who she is without him and his poisonous influence. But I think she'll need your help to do it."

Ivy looks at him with something indecipherable in her eyes and nods. They have a tentative truce after that; Ivy leaves Blüdhaven alone and occasionally helps him with drug antidotes, and Dick starts giving more focus to the factories scattered around Blüdhaven.

It's their unspoken but mutually understood thanks to each other; her for sparing her friend, his for helping a broken person to recover.

* * *

A week after, Dick answers the door and finds Tim standing there waiting.

"Oh hey Tim," he greets. "I wasn't expecting you today. What's up?"

Tim smiles tentatively up at him, but it quickly fades in a troubled look. Dick frowns, concerned, as he steps to the side to let his little brother into the apartment.

"Is something wrong?" he asks, following Tim into his living room.

Tim sits down on the couch, nervously playing with his hands, his gaze darting around the room. It's obvious he's looking everywhere except at Dick. It doesn't take a genius to guess at what's bothering him. Dick exhales quietly and sits down in a chair across from his brother.

"You know," he says simply.

Tim flinches minutely, and Dick's heart aches at the sight of it. He'd never wanted to hurt his brother. Tim takes a quick, deep breath, visibly gathering his courage, before blurting out in a rush, "Yeah. I... I know you killed Joker and Scarecrow. And Blockbuster. And I don't have any physical proof or footage but I think you killed Black Mask too."

Tim's looking at him like he wants desperately for Dick to deny it — but he can't, even if he had wanted to. And he doesn't want to. He's not proud that he killed any of them, but neither does he regret it. He won't apologize for taking the lives of men like them, not when their deaths make Gotham a thousand times safer. Not when it ensures that what happened to Jason will _never_ happen to Tim.

Dick closes his eyes briefly, then forces himself to look at Tim.

"You're right," he confirms quietly, and he can see something in Tim's eyes shatter. "I killed them. Gotta admit, I expected Bruce to confront me first."

Tim swallows. "I don't think he wants to see it. Doesn't want to imagine that you'd..."

Dick nods slowly. "Maybe he doesn't want to believe it, but that doesn't change the facts."

Tim searches his eyes with a pleading sort of desperation. He doesn't seem to know how to feel about what he finds there.

"Why?" Tim's voice is so uncertain and _small_ that it sends a spike straight through Dick's heart.

Dick rubs his forehead, trying to think of how he wants to phrase it, how to make Tim understand. Bruce is a great man, but he knows that he tends to view the world with a black-and-white lens and very little gray. That's something he passed along to Tim — and Dick too, until recently. _Killing vs murder_ , he thinks to himself, and that brings some amount of clarity to his jumbled thoughts.

"The thing I think is important to remember," Dick says gently, at last, "is that it's not about not killing. It's not about sparing criminals no matter their crimes or never crossing the line. Not killing doesn't automatically mean someone is a hero and a saint, and choosing to take a life doesn't make someone evil and a murderer. It's about having the self-control to know when to kill and, more importantly, to _know when not to kill."_

Dick exhales wearily. "I don't want this be my example to you. I don't want you to start to kill, or even feel like you have to. I don't want that for you. That's part of why I'm doing this, Timmy. So no one else, least of all you, has to instead. It's worth it to have blood on my hands if that means you never have to get blood on yours."

* * *

It's not long before the news spreads among the hero community. Nightwing, Batman's former protégé, has killed several of Gotham's rogues.

Some react with horror and refuse to associate with him again. Dick can't say he blames them. A few actively applaud him for his actions. Dick finds himself avoiding them; death is nothing to celebrate, no matter who it is. Most seem to just absorb the knowledge grimly and proceed to treat him mostly the same, with only a new wariness in their eyes. They don't approve of killing, but neither do they disapprove of the mass murderers' deaths.

Dick just goes back work in Blüdhaven and lets all their hearty support and cold judgement quietly wash over him. He lets people give him claps on the shoulder and disgusted looks from across the room, and lets his stoic façade mask how much it really hurts him, how much doubt their words fill him with.

He doesn't even kill often; Dick has since gone back to what he was doing even before Roland Desmond died, before he found the thin line between killing and murdering. Death is an extreme measure, he reminds himself, and he'll only resort to it in extreme cases, and even then, only if he knows for certain that it's not out of a sense of vengeance.

* * *

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?" he asks Donna, shortly after the information has reached almost the entire hero community. After several long days of judgement from other heroes, his conviction is wavering, and he needs advice, confirmation, whether it's in favor of or against.

She sets her book aside and looks him seriously. "Do you feel like you are?"

Dick presses his lips together. "I... Most of the time, yeah. I don't regret it anyway. The world's better off without them. But everybody else always... I don't know. It makes me doubt myself. Maybe I shouldn't have killed them. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and all that."

Donna considers his words carefully, then replies, "I'm a hero, and as a hero, I'm expected to never take a life. But I'm also an Amazon. We're trained for war from childhood. We're taught to show mercy where we can, but we're also taught that sometimes mercy for an enemy means the death of others. We can't always spare everyone."

"But do you think it was the right choice?"

"I think that if you choose the path of killing criminals, then at least you know you're doing it in the best way possible."

* * *

"I don't like it," Wally admits straight-up when Dick asks him the same question. "I think no matter how bad someone is, no one truly deserves death. There's always another way other than killing your enemy."

"What if there isn't?" Dick says, almost like a challenge.

"There's always another way," Wally repeats resolutely. "Maybe we can't always see it, but it's there. We just have to find it."

"But what if we can't find it?" Dick asks quietly.

"Then we have to look harder." Wally sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "Look, I wish you didn't kill them, Dick. I wish you had found a better way. But you're still my best friend, I trust you, and I trust that at the heart of any decision you make, you'll always have the best interests of others in mind."

* * *

"Atlanteans have an old-fashioned sense of justice," is Garth's answer. "I'm not enthused about about you killing them outside the system, but I certainly don't think they deserve to live. Idealism is not exactly a common Atlantean philosophy. I don't believe they ever would have reformed."

"Are you saying that's it right that they're dead, then?"

"I suppose I am, yes. In Atlantis, they would've been sentenced to death a long time ago. I never understood why your courts never issued that sentence. I believe they deserve it, but it is the courts' decision when it comes down to it, and your courts have chosen not to."

"Should I stop, then? Bring them in to stand trial? Would it be better that way, even if the courts keep letting them get off lightly?"

"I don't think I can answer that for you," Garth says. "What I can answer is this: I don't know if killing your worst criminals is right, exactly, but I don't think it's so wrong either."

* * *

"I need a favor," Dick says to Roy by way of greeting.

"You want to know how I feel about all this? If I think you're doing the right thing? The others mentioned it," Roy explains when Dick blinks at him in surprise. "Anyway, I don't mind the killing, not really. You know I’ve always been pretty tolerant of that stuff. I'm just concerned about what killing them will do to you. You've always been more sensitive to that sort of stuff."

Dick holds back his instinctive _I'm_ _fine_ when he sees Roy's look of warning. After a moment, he takes a more honest route. "It's been tough at times. But I'll be fine, I think. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday. And it's good to hear your thoughts on this all; it's part of why I came here, after all. But it's not the only reason."

Roy lifts a brow. "Yeah?"

Dick chews on his lip for a moment. "I know that... this favor is going to be asking a lot of you. And you don't have to do it, if you really don't want to, but you're the only one I can completely trust with this because the others might hesitate at a critical moment, and if it ever gets that far, it could make all the difference, and I can't be responsible for — "

"Breathe, Robbie," Roy interrupts. "Now, out with this favor. What do you need me to do?"

Dick breathes deeply and takes the leap. "If I start... going too far, losing myself... if I can't be reasoned with... I want you to stop me."

For a moment, his only reaction is his jaw tightening briefly. Dick doesn't have to clarify any further; Roy knows exactly what's being asked of him. Something like angry disbelief seeps into his eyes, as if he's silently asking _how could you possibly ask this of me?_ Ultimately, though, all that he says is, "Why me?"

"Because I know that if it comes down to it, you _will_ stop me. No matter what."

* * *

His friends' words are all a comfort, but Dick doesn't fail to notice that none of them (save Garth and even he managed to technically sidestep it) actually answer his question.

* * *

Victor Zsasz escapes Arkham on Wednesday night. A family of three is found murdered early Friday morning. Dick arrives back in Gotham later that day. He slits Zsasz's throat Monday evening.

As he watches blood spill down the front of Zsasz's neck and shirt and the man drops bonelessly to the ground, part of Dick wonders if maybe he is in the wrong. If maybe he is not just a killer but a murderer too. He's come this far, though, and he's not about to turn back now.

* * *

Bruce finally confronts him a week after Zsasz's death.

"You need to stop, Dick," he says, firmly, standing in Dick's safe-house. He's dressed as Batman, but his cowl is down.

"Bruce," he greets calmly, pretending that his heart isn't thudding in his ears.

"That's five now," Bruce says. "Blockbuster, Joker, Black Mask, Scarecrow, Zsasz. Unless there's more I don't know about?"

"No, that's all of them. And I'm not going to stop, B." Dick stares him down, watching Bruce's jaw tick. "Not for them. I'm certainly not planning on making a habit of it, but if someone like Zsasz is on the loose, I'm not going to give him the chance to ever kill anyone again."

 _"It's never going to stop,"_ Desmond had said, but he was wrong. It _is_ going to stop; Dick will make sure of it.

"We start by saying it'll only be just this once," Bruce says, shaking his head, "and then next time, we'll tell ourselves that it's the last time. And the next time, and the next, and the _next_ , until we're no better than — "

"— Than them," Dick interrupts. "I _know_ , B. How many times have you told me exactly that? And I really don't think killing people like Zsasz and Joker are on the level of slaughtering countless innocents just because they can."

"Killing anyone outside the system is still murder," Bruce insists. "Locking them away in prison is justice."

Well, he's not entirely wrong, Dick admits to himself. The definition of a murder is an unlawful kill. Technically speaking, he's murdered five men. Morally speaking? That's a lot less clear.

"But that hasn't gotten justice for people, has it?" Dick points out, determined to at least point out the flaws in Bruce's philosophy. He's not going to just blindly follow him anymore. "Look at Joker. He'd broken out upward a dozen times. You think people thought it was justice when they lost family to him and he basically gets the equivalent of a slap on the wrist? You think they thought it was justice when he escaped again and again and killed even more people, only for the same thing to happen?"

"Killing is never the path of a hero," Bruce says stubbornly.

"Nothing in life is ever simple, and this world is not a kind place," Dick replies. "We both know that. Gotham is corrupt and broken. People need you, Bruce. They need Batman. They need someone that they can trust to never cross that line, to always do what's right, no matter what. The city needs that hero to keep from completely falling to the darkness. But," he adds when Bruce opens his mouth, "they also need someone else. Someone who knows what needs to be done. Who won't place morality above their safety. Gotham is corrupt, and it will always be corrupt as long as we let madmen and mass murderers run amok."

Bruce's mouth thins.

"And when you go too far?" Bruce says it like it's inevitable, and it makes Dick's heart hurt, to realize that his father thinks a descent into villainy is the only way this can end. It tells him just how little faith Bruce has in Dick's discipline and self-control.

He has to bite back his first angry reply. "I have contingencies. I've taken precautions. _If_ I go too far, I know I'll be stopped."

Dick scrubs a hand over his face. "I know you believe in what you're doing, B, and you should. But you also tend to see in black-and-white; you think that no one has the self-control to make this work. Maybe you're right, maybe you're not. But Gotham has never been a city where we can afford to not look at the shades of gray, and always taking the same path hasn't worked. So I'm choosing a different one."

He sighs, deeply, a sudden world-weariness crashing over him.

"You're doing what's _right_ , B," Dick says. "I'm doing what's _necessary_. And those aren't always the same thing."

* * *

There's a fine line between killing and murdering, and maybe Bruce has been right all along. Maybe Dick has already crossed it. Maybe he really is making mistake after mistake and justifying them however he can. Maybe he really is starting down a dark path and soon it will be too late to come back. Maybe he really is taking more from the world with every life he claims than each death will eventually give back.

But if it means madmen like Joker will never run free to terrorize the city and the world and drag others down into the depths of insanity with him...

But if it means children in Gotham will grow up sometime in the future and never know the fear of having a dozen criminals fight for control over the city...

But if it means Tim will never die like Jason did, utterly alone and in indescribable agony...

...Dick thinks that he's just going to need to have faith that he ultimately gives more than he takes, that the good outweighs the bad, and that in the end, it will be enough to make a difference in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Please keep in mind that this is a fictional story, and characters having certain opinions doesn't necessarily mean I share the same opinions. My feelings on killing can be complicated at times, and this was a way for me to explore the shades of gray in killing, really look at the ramifications of it, at how far is too far.
> 
> In many Batman stories I’ve read, when people have a character start killing, it usually leads to that character going insane, becoming a villain, and going on a murdering spree. Either that, or have them never look back and always be certain in their decisions. I wanted to take a different route with this story.  
> 
> 
> Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions?
> 
> Seriously, please share your thoughts. I’d love to hear your opinions on this. It’s always great to get different perspectives.


End file.
